The Cold Read online

  The Cold by Rich Hawkins

  First published in 2019 by

  Horrific Tales Publishing

  http://www.horrifictales.co.uk

  Copyright © 2019 Rich Hawkins

  http://www.horrifictales.co.uk

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  The moral right of Rich Hawkins to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  THE COLD

  Rich Hawkins

  “… throw roses into the abyss and say: ‘here is my thanks to the monster who didn’t succeed in swallowing me alive.’”

  - Friedrich Nietzsche

  PROLOGUE

  Two men found Seth in a crumpled heap on his back, half-buried in a snow drift.

  Shivering and confused, each breath a wheezing gasp from sore lungs, he looked up at the men and muttered incoherently. The pain in his bones, in his bruised and impact-softened limbs, muddled his thoughts. Encrusted blood around his left eye, from a shallow gash on his forehead, clouded his vision. His mouth tasted of metal and one of his molars was cracked. He remembered crawling from the wreck of the train to this spot near a blackened and snow-burdened tree. He smelled oil, diesel, and burnt electrics.

  “We thought you were dead,” said one of the men. He was chubby and pink-cheeked, squinting from one puffy and bruised eye. A Batman t-shirt was visible past the front opening of his thick coat. He grimaced as the wind swept flecks of snow at his face.

  “Only half-dead, by the looks of him,” said the other man, scratching his beard and frowning. He looked down at Seth. “Anything broken?”

  “I don’t think so,” Seth said.

  “Are you all right?” the chubby man asked.

  “Looks fucked,” the other man said.

  “I’m okay, I think,” Seth said, wincing at the low ringing in his ears as he sat up. Red bells hammered inside his head. He rubbed his aching jaw. With one hand he scraped the dried blood from around his eye then looked into the middle distance, where the train’s three carriages lay on their sides in the field adjacent to the tracks. The train had obliterated several trees and cut large gouges into the snow-covered earth. Shards of shattered glass gleamed on the ground amongst scraps of broken plastic, splintered wood and torn metal. The middle of the front carriage had been ripped open.

  Pale fog reduced visibility to less than forty yards in all directions.

  And then there were the crumpled bodies around the wreckage of the train, the falling snow slowly softening their outlines.

  “Jesus Christ.” Seth looked away from the devastation. Tears welled in his eyes as he stared at his trembling hands. A sob caught in his throat.

  “Were you with anybody?” one of the men said. Seth was barely listening, but he shook his head, dropping his hands to his lap as he felt the world lurch away from him. His harsh breathing was the only sound as the snow fell against his eyes and his sore face.

  The men pulled him up. He stood on watery legs and murmured his gratitude to the two men as they helped him along the ground. They passed the indistinct form of a woman lying mostly sunken in a snowdrift. Her arms were twisted the wrong way and the stiffened fingers of one hand poked from the snow like upturned roots. Before he turned away, stepping over a raggedy, half-frozen teddy bear belly-up on the ground, Seth noticed a wedding ring on her finger.

  The men brought him under the bough of a wind-lashed oak. Injured people sat or crouched, huddled in blankets, nursing broken limbs, lacerations, concussions. A man sat against a pile of suitcases, bandages wrapped around his head, moaning softly to himself. A woman lay on her back upon a blanket, eyes fluttering, with one side of her face red and exposed. Beside her a young boy, with his left leg gone below the knee – the stump wrapped untidily in gauze and strips of cloth – passed in and out of consciousness, his mouth moving soundlessly.

  Several other people milled about or tended to the wounded with meagre supplies from a first aid kit. They paid little attention to Seth. Their faces were slack with shock, their movements meandering and aimless.

  “At least you’ll be out of the snow,” said the bearded man, cringing against a gust of wind and icy flecks.

  Seth sat against the base of the trunk and winced as the muscles in his legs twitched and cramped. The cold slowed the blood in his veins, muddied his thoughts, and numbed his limbs.

  A young woman with pale blonde hair gave him a coat to use as a blanket. She smiled sadly and, before Seth could thank her, she moved away to check on someone else. He looked out from under the tree and watched the snow fall and bustle. The sky was without definition, waxen and unending.

  The bearded man crouched near Seth. “It shouldn’t be snowing. It’s summer. This shouldn’t be happening.”

  “It came out of nowhere,” the chubby man said, sniffling and wiping his nose with the back of his hand. He folded his arms and shifted on his feet, trying to stay warm. “Conditions will only worsen once it gets dark. The temperature will drop.”

  The bearded man took a small bottle of water from his coat pocket and handed it to Seth. “What’s your name?”

  “Seth Murphy.” He drank several sips then returned the bottle.

  “I’m Miles.”

  “My name’s Andy,” said the chubby man.

  “Thank you for helping me,” Seth said. The muscles of his face were slack, as though they’d been loosened by the force of the crash. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  Miles gestured to the other people around them. “We’re the only survivors. Fourteen of us.”

  Seth said nothing. He felt like crying and laughing at the same time, but he was capable of neither.

  Miles looked towards the train tracks. “It’s been over an hour since the crash. The emergency services should have arrived by now. This place should be teeming with ambulances and police.”

  “The snow might have blocked the roads and the railway line,” Andy said. “We can’t even get a phone signal out here, to phone 999. We just need to wait. It must be the weather.”

  “Of course it’s the weather,” Miles said. “It’s snowing in fucking summer.”

  Seth fumbled in his pockets and took out his smartphone. He swiped his thumb across the screen, trying to unlock it, but he’d already noticed the cracks and shattered bits of metal and plastic, and knew it was a hopeless and broken thing.

  He dropped the phone on the ground and left it there.

  “Do you remember what happened?” Miles asked Seth. “Did you see what caused us to crash?”

  He tried to recall the bits and pieces drifting in his mind. Little fragments of the time just before the train left the tracks.

  “I fell asleep, and when I woke up, I saw the snow outside the windows. People were talking about the snow. Then, I’m not sure what happened. I can’t remember.” But the memory was there. The image flooded his system with adrenaline and anxiety.

  He just couldn’t bring himself to tell them about the thing he’d glimpsed in the snowstorm, moments before the train crashed.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The people on the station platform waited for the train, preoccupying themselves with phones and paperback novels, news
papers and magazines. Those without distractions stared down at their feet or at the tracks below them, lost in their thoughts, while others turned to look down the line, watching for the train to appear. A young couple surrounded by assorted suitcases and bags argued in whispers and stifled movements, careful not to raise their voices and draw glances from the crowd. An old man coughed damply into his hand and wiped it on the front of his coat, then pulled a handkerchief from one pocket and dabbed at the corners of his mouth. Next to him a teenage girl picked at her fingernails, her face set in a frown. The automated voice on the PA system droned a rambling incantation.

  Seth stood with his back against a concrete pillar, his arms folded. The temperature was dropping sharply. He stared down the line, urging the train to arrive so he could leave Southampton and the memory of the unsuccessful job interview behind. The air of the city was tainted, clotting in his lungs and tightening his chest. The tall buildings, busy streets, loud music and chattering pedestrians on pavements and in shop doorways had all increased his anxiety and nervous tension as he’d walked to the job interview, and it had been a disaster.

  He’d been late, drawing barely-disguised disapproval from the two suited men across the table from him, and once the stammering of his words and the trembling in his hands started, that was the end of that. And now the train back to Somerset was ten minutes late. He checked the time on his phone and breathed through his teeth. The backs of his legs ached with cramps and his eyes stung. He read the text sent by his father just before midday, two hours ago.

  Good luck with interview today. Don’t be late. Your mother had a bad morning after you left the house. Kept asking for you – she thought you’d run away from home. I explained that it would be a bit weird for our twenty-five year old son to do that. She didn’t get the joke. At least she’s sleeping now and seems to be okay. Take care, my boy.

  Seth put the phone back in his pocket when he heard the distant rumble of the approaching train. He thought about his mother; the Alzheimer’s had taken much of her mind in the past year and she was fading a little more with each day. The memories of her before the disease were bittersweet and treasured. It was how she should be remembered, especially once she was gone. Of course his father would be inconsolable when the time came; it would be an effort to bring the old man back from that. It made him question his decision to apply for a job some distance away from home. Just the thought of it all broke Seth’s heart and made him nauseous. He swallowed to relieve the thickening of his throat, and blinked away the dampness in his eyes.

  The sound of the train grew louder.

  The people on the platform turned their heads to look down the track. Reading material was put away. Bags were readied and lifted. Someone laughed nervously. The crowd began clamouring as the train appeared from around the curve of the track. There was no announcement from the speaker system, but nobody cared, because the train was in sight now.

  The few dozen people gathered near the edge of the platform as the train scraped and slowed to a stop. Its engine thrummed as it idled. The doors hissed open and several passengers disembarked, leaving the three carriages mostly empty. Seth slouched at the back of the crowd, the skin on the back of his neck prickling from a cold draught that found the openings in his clothes.

  He let an old lady step on ahead of him. He minded the gap and moved through the doorway. Behind him a man in a damp-smelling coat kept nudging the backs of his legs with an oversized suitcase.

  The stuffy air inside the train irritated his sore throat. Hopefully there was a drinks trolley on board.

  He found two seats halfway down the second carriage and sat down, removing his tie and placing it on the seat beside him. He sighed deeply and pinched between his eyes, relieved to be one step closer to home. All he had to do now was sit there until his stop at Yeovil train station, where he’d then get a taxi back home.

  Relaxing for the first time all day, he leaned his head back and looked out the window as the last few people boarded. The carriage filled with conversation and dull mutterings, blended with the tinny leaking of music from earphones.

  Once everyone was seated, the doors shut and dampened the sound from outside. A whistle shrilled from somewhere. Moments later the train was building up speed along the track, leaving Southampton behind.

  “Thank fuck for that,” he whispered.

  Relieved that no one had sat next to him, he closed his eyes and thought of home.

  *

  When he saw the snow falling against his window to shroud the world beyond, he thought he must have been asleep and dreaming to see such impossible things.

  He raised his head from behind his seat and looked around. The remaining passengers on the carriage watched the snow. With a brief shiver he pulled up the collar of his coat and zipped it up at the front. The train shuddered on the track. Metal rattled somewhere under the carriage. A little girl was crying a few seats behind him.

  He strained his eyes to see beyond the snow, but visibility ended only a few yards past the glass. Shapes flitted amidst the descending flakes. There could have been faces out there, staring back at him from the fading daylight. His eyes were playing tricks.

  But there was something else out there.

  And when he glimpsed the colossal shadow-like form of writhing limbs and tendrils lurching towards the train, his eyes stretched wide and his bones seized up as if with a terrible palsy. He tried to call out, to warn the others, but the words stuck in his throat.

  The sound of screeching metal filled the inside of the carriage, followed by shrieking inertia and juddering shocks. Covering his head with hands, Seth turned away from the windows as they cracked and shattered, glass shards exploding inwards. The air filled with sharp projectiles. Snow bustled through the broken windows to smother the passengers.

  All around him the wind roared, people screamed, and something vast and unknowable responded with cries of its own.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Over an hour had passed since Seth had been pulled from the snow, but so far no emergency services had arrived at the crash site. Miles and Andy volunteered to walk up the tracks to the next train station and find help.

  Not wanting to be left behind with the injured and dying, Seth asked to tag along. Miles checked if he was well enough to make the walk, and seemed doubtful but Seth said he’d be fine.

  “It might be a long walk,” Miles told him.

  “No problem.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can we go now?” said Andy. “Please.”

  Seth’s constant thoughts about the terrible thing he’d seen before the train crash made him nauseated and dismayed. But it was better to do something useful instead of just waiting around to be rescued.

  Leaving the other survivors behind, they went off into the snow, shivering in jackets unsuitable for such severe weather. From within his thin hood, Seth stared straight ahead down the tracks as far as possible in the white-out. Hands entrenched in his pockets, he moved with an awkward limp, ignoring the crawling pain in his legs and feet. Thirst irritated his throat. On both sides of the tracks visibility was down to a few yards, now. The air seemed grainy, imbued with diffused light. Silence except for their footfalls and respiration. Not even the sounds of birds or distant traffic. The falling snow suffocated all noise beyond them.

  The three men walked to one side of the tracks, trampling through the pristine layer of snow upon the grass, gravel and dirt. Miles moved in front, checking the way ahead between futile attempts to get his phone working. Andy walked abreast of Seth, coughing into his hands. The skin of his face was blotchy.

  The falling snow and fog formed a pale shroud of nothingness behind them. Seth suddenly felt that if they stopped walking, the nothingness would catch them, consume them, and obliterate any sign of their presence. Wipe them from the face of the earth.

  Andy took a tissue from his pocket and dabbed at his nose. His voice was nasal and quiet. “It feels like
we’re the only people left in the world.”

  Seth looked around. “Don’t say that. Please don’t say that.”

  “You were thinking the same?”

  “A little bit.”

  “Didn’t mean to spook you.”

  “It’s okay.”

  Miles glanced back at them and frowned.

  “Can you believe what happened?” Andy said. “We were in a fucking train crash. That’s mental.”

  “It doesn’t feel real.”

  Andy gave a little laugh that didn’t sound right.

  Seth thought again of the immense thing of shadow he’d seen before the crash. His breath rattled out of his mouth. His knee joints scraped as he walked.

  “Where you from, man?” Andy asked.

  “A village called Briar Slope.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s near Yeovil.”

  “Oh yeah, I know Yeovil. Been there a few times. I’m from Bristol.”

  “I thought so,” said Seth.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Your accent.”

  Andy snorted, wiping his nose. “Can’t argue with that. Yours is quite broad, huh?”

  “Somerset born-and-bred. The people in Southampton could tell straight away I was a redneck.”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad,” said Andy.

  “It really was. Never mind, it’s the least of my concerns right now. How far until we reach the next station?”

  “Not too far, I think,” Miles told them.

  “I’m fucked,” said Andy. “I need a sit down.” His face was aggravated and reddened by the cold. Bits of snow had gathered upon the wispy hair on his doughy chin.

  “Keep moving,” Miles said.

  Andy glared at his back and muttered, “Yes, sir,” under his breath.

  Seth was craving hot sweet tea and painkillers, and thinking of a warm bed, when a flapping sound above made him pause. He looked up, scanning for any movement, but there was nothing but the snow coming down at him. He seemed to be the only one to have heard it. It had sounded too big to be a songbird, so it was probably a buzzard or a large crow.